The final part of our interview with Bruce Walton.

Thanks so much to Bruce for doing this for us.

So the starting rotations is Romero, Cecil, Morrow, Alvarez and McGowan?

That's about what we have right now, I think we have other people in the mix, McGuire, Jenkins, Huchison, Lafferty. You have other guys there that are in the mix but I think that's the top 5. Pretty simple.

Drabek would have to have a good spring?

Yeah he'd have to have a good spring but Kyle if he, Kyle has a chance to make the team. I mean anyone that starts 10-12 games last year for the big league club has a chance to start this year. We need Kyle, Kyle is a big part of our organization. We need Kyle to get there. To find out who Kyle is and get there fast.

Sergio Santos, what do you think he'll do this year?

Oh he'll be great. He's familiar with our organization. He knows everyone here. He's a good kid. A big strong power, 95-96. The ability to miss bats. A wipeout breaking ball. The ability to strikeout 3 hitters in an inning. A tremendous addition to our bullpen. Hopefully he'll be there for a long time, so we don't have to worry about our closer for a while. We know who our closer is. It makes it a little bit easier to manage the bullpen once you have a set closer and he's our guy. He's got the weapons to close. He's got the mentally, he's got the stuff. I'm excited to have him and I know him. So we aren't going into this blind, we know the person, the person is great, the person is completive, he's going to fit in really nice. Can't wait to see him again.

Jon Rauch had trouble with home runs. Why?

He left balls up in the strike zone. (laughs). Rauch can pitch, he's a very good pitcher, he can locate. At times the ball got elevated and they got him. Rauch doesn't throw that hard. He's 88-90 and when the ball comes up in the strike zone it is very easy to hit, when the ball is down in the strike zone, coming from that big frame, it was very hard to hit. He was leaving balls up in the zone. Also playing in ball parks, you know the AL East isn't the easiest place to pitch. I know the other divisions are getting better, so I don't know if I can use that line much anymore. It's a tough league. The Boston line up is still one of the best in baseball, the New York line up is always tough, the Tampa Bay Rays are always tough, the Baltimore Orioles can always hit.

Rogers Centre isn't the best place to pitch. It's small and its comfortable. It isn't overly cold, or overly hot. If it is they close it. So it's comfortable for the hitters, the hitters get a great look at the baseball there, they love hitting there and the ball flies. Boston the ball flies. The wall intimidates you as a pitcher. Boston pretty good hitting ball park. New York pretty good hitting ballpark. Tampa Bay pretty good hitting ballpark. Baltimore is fair. I think Baltimore is the fairest one of them all. I think all those when you add them up it is a home run league.

Are you worried that we didn't add another starter this year?

No I'm not worried. I like my rotation, I liked my rotation at the end of last year. I thought we completed very well. I think with Ricky and Brandon and Brett, I think Brett is going to have a good year and Henderson was fabulous and McGowan showed signs of rebounding and coming back. I think that's a pretty good rotation. Adding to the bullpen with a closer and we know Darren Oliver, what he does. Jason Frasor and Casey Janssen, those are 4 big time guys going into the end of the game that know their roles going into spring training. I think they will be really good this year. As much as you want to add pieces, sometimes you can't, sometimes it's hard. I think we added the pieces where we needed to.

If you looked at our season last year, the most glaring thing was the 22 blown saves. 22. You can point fingers here and there but we did blow 22 saves. At times we didn't pitch deep enough into games as starters, regardless our middle guys held it and we had a chance to win those games and we failed. If we win half those games it's 10 games. Maybe that's 81 to 91. I'm really happy that the end of the game is going to be more consistent. That's nothing against Frankie or I thought Dotel pitched well for us before he was traded and I thought that Frankie had a heck of a second half.

(Francisco) never really got rolling till the second half till the second half. When he got rolling he was good, we needed that Frankie at the beginning of the season, we didn't have that at the beginning of the season and that hurt us. We missed Frankie at the beginning of the season. He just had some lingering stuff, tried to get it done and he couldn't get it done. It showed. And when he got healthy it showed.

I was hoping Casey would be the 8th inning guy this year.

(This was before the Cordero signing).Well Casey did most of the 8th inning stuff at the end of the year last year and I'm sure he'll get more 8th inning stuff. I think that between him and Jason and Darren, they are all the 8th inning guys. The only time when Casey didn't get the 8th is when he pitched a couple of days in a row. Casey had a heck of a year, Casey is coming into his own, he knows how to pitch, he'll keeping the ball down, he's doing everything that he needs to do to get his outs. And he's a legitimate 8th inning guys and if you have a legitimate 8th inning guy that's pitching the 7th that's a pretty good bullpen.

What do you think of the Jays having pitchers skip Vegas?

It isn't the funest place to pitch, you have to do different things to pitch there. It's not the ideal place to develop, just because the ball travels. You gotta pitch backwards, you gotta do a lot of things. You have to go against getting ready for the big leagues. I want them to pitch in, I want them to throw a lot of fastballs. I want them to get their fastball command. When you are in a league that hitters can only hit fastballs, most of them, that's why they are in Triple-A. And in a league that the ball flies, so they are throwing a lot of off-speed pitches and they are throwing the wrong way to put up numbers, which they need to do. What do you tell a kid, it's ok to do that, so you don't have a good ERA so people don't notice you. So what do you do. So it's not the ideal place to judge pitching, it's not the ideal place to teach pitching, it's not the ideal place to develop place to develop pitching.

I think you have to shave points off. If it is a 5 or 6 ERA, it's likely a 4 and a half. Then again you are guessing. What if? The what ifs get you in trouble. What if he was playing there, but he's not he's playing here, and this is what he is doing. It depends on who it is and what they need to do with that certain pitcher. I don't think it is that bad to come up from Double-A. Then again you like to see the guys come through the levels. Levels are there for a reason. Each level has its own challenges. And once they meet those challenges, and you see how they handle them, it gives you the most information you can possibly have to decide if this guy is ready to come up and handle our league.

So you like the levels, you'd like to see how they do at the levels and when someone comes up from Single-a or Double-a you are like ohhhhh. He might not have been bad yet. I need him to be bad. I want to see what happens to them when they are bad. Because you are going to be bad in the big leagues, it is a given, I don't care who you are. I don't care if you are Roy Halladay, I've seen hit bad. What are you going to do when you are bad.

We got 7 off (David) Price one day, then Price was good for 12 straight. So we know how he handles bad. He forgets about it, he lets it go. He gets it. And he's fine, he gets it.

That must be the hardest thing about pitching, to forget?

Short term memory. It's the hardest thing to give a pitcher. They wear it on their sleeves. Some of them because of the team . Some of them for selfish reasons, which are fine, contract and stuff like that. If I don't get somebody out I'm not going to get paid. How much more pressure do you need? This is the job I choose, I've thrown everything away in my life to do this occupation, knowing there is a reward at the end of the rainbow if I do well. If I don't do well, I gotta go back and start life over. Go back to school, get an education. So a lot of these players, including myself, threw everything out the window to chase this dream. The dream isn't only to pitcher here but to make a career out of it, support your family and it's almost like becoming an actor. There isn't much of a fallback baseball players, other than those that are scholar and player. That's not that common.

There is a lot of pressure on them, the mental part of the game is huge at the big leagues. At the big leagues they let you know how you are doing. There are 50,000 people telling you how you are doing, there's a social network now, there's newspapers still, there's blogs. Everybody is not afraid to tell you how you doing or how you're not doing. I try to keep them off the social networks, for the most part, other than if they do it the right way. Just because they read something and they take it to heart. That guy doesn't know you, he doesn't know what happened next week. I'm the only one that knows what happened. And they come to the field and think maybe they are right, maybe I suck. I'm like no you don't.

The second last part of our talk with Bruce Walton.

If you missed any of it; part one is here, two here and three here.

I'm not sure how much it comes across in the text of this, but I really had a good time talking to Bruce. He was very nice to talk too. I like talking to folks from who I can learn about the game. Some of the best parts, of course, were before and after the recorder was turned on. Some of the fun was just how great it was to talk baseball, face-to-face with someone that knows the game so well. Bruce said, before we were recording, that Calgary isn't a baseball town. It is rare to have more than a simplistic talk about baseball with someone here.

Ricky Romero seems so intent on improving each year. What can he do to continue to get better?

Ricky's still growing, he's still young. He grew last year by taking the number one spot and running with it. We are still working on fastball command, a little bit. We are still working on pitching to both sides of the plate. We are still working on if we don't have our stuff what do we do. We accomplished a lot last year. We are still working on how to pitch in Boston and New York consistently. I think we found a little something there last year that started to work. As good a year as Ricky had there's still room for improvement every year. He wants to be the best, he wants to make the All-Star team, he wants to win the World Series. He wants to be the best pitcher in baseball. And with that attitude and that drive, he has so much stuff he needs to work on every year. He s a tremendous athlete that has tremendous holes and he wants to get better every year, so there is always something that we can improve on.

We have to change our game a little bit, Ricky can't stay with his normal game all the time. We have to make adjustments. It's a game of adjustments. For Ricky to be better it is adjusting with the game.

What does Brandon Morrow have to do to be more consistent?

Brandon, it's my second year with Brandon. His first year we went through some walk issues, base on balls, command issues. We pretty much ironed it out. We got to the point where now we left a lot of balls in the middle of the plate. So we went from one extreme to the other extreme and we gave up a lot of home runs last year. He's a fly ball pitcher at times, he doesn't get a whole lot of ground balls, so when the ball sits in the middle of the plate belt high and they get a piece of it, it goes. So now it is just staying down in the zone consistently. I think for Brandon to be consistent, his pitches have to be down consistent. We have to plan the effort level to pitch at consistently. Consistency is what we have to work on in every aspect. Keeping the ball down, keeping our emotions in check. Keeping our work effort at a certain level, consistently. All those will come. This is the year for that to come. There's steps to becoming a major league starting pitcher. The first step was that we needed to throw strikes. We accomplished that. It took us a year and a half. Our next step is to manage the game a little bit better and manage our emotions a little bit better and manage our season a little bit better and become more consistent. That's where we are at.

Henderson Alvarez came from A ball to the Majors. How was he so successful?

He repeats his delivery very well. He sinks the ball very well. And he throws a changeup off his sinker that looks exactly the same. So he pitches at 93 to 95, with a sinking fastball and he has a changeup that looks exactly the same at 82 to 83. And when you can do that you can pitch where ever you want. We are in the works of getting his slider going a little bit. His slider gets a little sloppy, we need to get it more consistent, a little tighter. He has a great career ahead of him. He puts the ball on the ground. He gets 14 ground ball outs a game. And when a guy can do that and throw mid-90's and sink the ball, major league hitters don't like it. Minor league hitters don't know what he's doing. Major league hitters know what he's doing, they don't like it. They don't like the ball sinking at 95 at the knees and a changeup coming off of that at 82. They don't like it, they can't cover that. They want to hit off straight fastballs not sinking fastballs. So he has, not only does it have a good fastball, it's a sinking fastball and a great changeup, he's got great command. He's got a great feel for pitching. He's got a long way to go. He's still young. He's still going to have some games that get away from him. Mentally we have got to work on some things. But he's a great prospect and he had a great showing for us last time.

I was surprised that the troubles Kyle Drabek had at the start of the year. Can he overcome that?

Oh yeah, Kyle's going to be fine. It's odd that you come up and you don't have problems and you don't struggle. It's odd if you don't struggle. Kyles biggest struggle was that he didn't throw enough strikes. He found out that the strike zone is a little smaller. He found out what it was like to be a rookie in the major leagues. He needs to overcome that mentally a little bit. He needs to understand that contact is ok. He'll be fine. So throw more strikes, understanding that getting outs with contact is fine. If you have a bad game you have to leave it at home. Those are all experiences that every pitcher that comes up and struggles has. Everyone that comes up and struggles has those same experiences. Bad games, don't throw enough strikes, base on balls and mentally they get a little whacked out about it, at the time. Kyle's fine, he has a great head on his shoulders, he struggled a little bit, throw strikes and that's an easy fix. It comes with age. He's young.

Jesse Litsch moved from the starting rotation, why was the decision made?

We always liked Jesse Litsch. He did a nice job as a starter then he went through some arm surgeries. He came back and he started and he did ok. I think when we looked at him going to the bullpen it was to make our team better, rather than if Jesse could start or reliever, he could do both. But with Jesse's numbers against right-handed hitters and his left-handed splits aren't bad either. Jesse can throw the ball every day. He really can. He's got a rubber arm who could come in and throw breaking ball first pitch strike, throw changeup first pitch strike. He can do a lot of things, so he is very effective in the bullpen role, that at the time, I think we needed. So I think he filled the void and at the same time did a very good job getting his 12-14 outs a week over 5 days rather getting his 12 or 14 outs in one day.

That's not to say he's not ever going to start again. I think he did a fabulous job in the bullpen. I think that you saw him out there a lot, it's not easy to find guys that can pitch back-to-back days like Jesse did. I think with Henderson coming and Dustin coming make it easier for us to do that. Without Dustin coming back or Henderson doing what he did we wouldn't have been able to see what Jesse was like down there.

Is the team going to limit Dustin McGowan's innings this year?

We haven't discussed that yet. Dusty's done it before. It is a unique situation for us. I think we have to sit down and discuss it. At this time I really have no idea. Hopefully Dusty can pitch 200 innings, that's what I'm hoping. Whether it is this year or next year, I don't know. Dustin did a great job coming back from a couple of really painful years for him, mentally and physically and it is just nice to see him out there pitching.

So Dustin, what he is going to do? How is he going to be used? We haven't talked about it. I don't think we are worrying about it. I don't think we are there yet. We are just making sure Dusty is fine and that he comes into Spring Training and he fights for that number 5 hole. That's what I want for Dusty and whatever happens happens after that.

On to the third part of our interview with Bruce Walton.

There was some conversation before the recorder was turned on. Bruce was wrong in guessing Prince Fielder would sign with the Rangers. He figured Prince would enjoy hitting in Arlington and would put up big numbers there. He'd have better numbers there than he will in Detroit. Bruce didn't like the idea of signing him to a long contract saying that 'other than in the 90's' players haven't tended to continue to do well into their late 30's.

What do you think of radar guns? I'm thinking of Brett Cecil coming into spring training last year and it seemed like the first thing he talked about was how hard he was throwing. Maybe it put the focus on the wrong thing?

Yeah you know the radar gun it is a double edged sword. It is a great tool, but it is also a very distracting tool. It's part of the game. It's up in every ballpark now. Its entertainment. The fans want to see how hard you throw. The scouts want to see how hard you throw. And, at times, the hitters want to see how hard you throw. Pitching coaches and managers really don't care as long as you can command the ball and get outs.

But the distraction that Brett went through was rough on him. He did, he lost some velocity coming out of spring training, into the season. Sometimes the arm takes some wear and tear and doesn't come back as strong the next year. You have good years, bad years. Last year for Cecil his arm didn't respond as well as it did the previous years. It didn't have to do with the top of his velocity, it had a lot to do with the radar gun when his fastball and changeup got closer together. So the deception wasn't there. Regardless if he was throwing 88 or 94, he still had the ability to pitch well, it's just that his speeds all kind of came together. It made it harder for him. It was a hard year for him. But still, when you look at his numbers, it wasn't horrible. I mean, he didn't have the win and loss, everyone looks at the win and loss, but if you look at his numbers in general, they are not that much different.

He ended the season well, he just had some parts of the season where they didn't go as well as he wanted them too. You know, the radar gun had a little bit of an effect on him mentally, i think. He went through a mental problem more than he went through an arm problem.

Brett had just an ok year, things didn't go his way, he didn't have a lot of luck. But at the end of the day, go back and look at his numbers they aren't that much different, other than his won/loss.

Which aren't really all his doing anyway.

No, you go out and pitch the best you can, whichever way the game ends up it ends up. The radar gun, you know, I like it at times, but most of the time I don't. I'm not a big radar gun fan. I could careless how are you are throwing. If you get outs, you get outs. Understanding the art of pitching has nothing to do with the radars. Understanding the concept of pitching. Understanding how to pitch in the major leagues. How to move the ball around. How to stay down in the zone. Playing the chess game with the hitter has nothing to do with the radar gun.

How important is the relationship between pitcher and catcher?

It's very important, the most important thing is trust. So the relationship is built on trust and that's it. If you trust what that catcher is putting down and trust that that catcher is putting down the best pitch scenarios for you to get hitters out,then you click. If you are indecisive and you think he isn't putting down the right fingers then that works against you. You start searching for stuff you to throw, that you don't want to throw. JP came in last year, as a rookie catcher, and did a great job of getting to know the pitchers and their strengths and weaknesses and putting a game plan together for them. By the mid-season and the end of season he had a tremendous idea of what to do. It takes a while, even when a new catcher comes in, like a John Buck, the previous year. Here is a veteran catcher who knows every hitter but still doesn't know the pitcher he's catching, on the team he's on right now. So he's got to get to know this person. He's got to know how to yell at him and how to talk to him softly, how to support him and how to kick him in the butt at times. And then he also has to learn what his best pitches are and when to call them and when not to call them. So it is a pretty big part of the game.

Do you work with the catchers on framing pitchers?

No I don't. Anything fundamentally is Wauk, our bench coach, he's a catching guy and he does all that. The only thing I do is scouting reports with them and I help them with our pitchers and I help them with their relationship with our pitchers. I'm kind of like the father figure between the catchers and the pitchers. And me and, last year, it would be me, Molina and JP we'd all be sitting in there and we'd be deciding the game plan. My catchers are a big part of the game plan. They are calling it. They are playing the game. I'm watching it. I'm giving suggestions and I'm monitoring how it is going and if they get off their plan I tell them. If the plan's not working I tell them. They are a big part of my game. I spend as much time with the 2 catchers as I do with the 12 pitchers, as far as talking and planning.

Do pitchers ever still doctor the ball or has that disappeared from baseball?

I think that's disappeared. I know when I played, everyone was accusing people of doctoring the ball, cutting it, making the ball sink more, cut more, scuff it, sandpaper all that. That's disappeared. I think it is a lost art maybe. You know, they throw the balls out after every pitch now, if they get a scuff on them and it is hard to doctor the ball.

HD cameras pointing at you from every direction.

Cameras everywhere. It's not easy to doctor the ball now if you wanted to. I haven't seen it in a long time.

A lot of Blue Jay pitchers seem to throw great changeups. Is that an organizational thing?

It is definitely an organizational thing. Me and Dane Johnson, our minor league pitching coordinator, he understands how good the changeup is in the game of baseball. I mean it helps out every pitcher. He is one of the best I have ever seen to really go overboard with the changeup in the minor leagues. No matter who you are, whether you are Dustin McGowan or Shawn Camp, you throw changeups. I'm big on it. So I love having Dane be as enthusiastic as he is on it. I think it is the only pitch in base you can't sit on. It is the only pitch in baseball that even if you make a mistake with it you can still get outs, I think. I hanging Changeup has better results, I believe, than a hanging breaking ball. So damage control. Hitters hate it. It's not the easiest pitch to throw. It takes a lot of practice, that's why Dane is so adamant, having guys, at 18-19 years old, just constantly throw changeups. So by the time they get to the big leagues, he knows how important it is to me, that we have a guy with a changeup.

Dustin McGowan, is a prime example of a guy, here is a guy that throws 96 MPH, a great slider, a great curveball. We made him throw changeups. Dane made him throw changeups. Dane gave him a changeup and now his second best pitch is the changeup. Brett Cecil's second best pitch is a changeup. Rickey Romero's second best pitch changeup. This is all coming off fastballs. Ricky Romero could have one of the best changeups in baseball. And Brett Cecil, when he is on, could have almost the best changeup in baseball.

It works, it just works. Hitters cannot time 94 or 84 and when 2 pitches look exactly the same coming in, 10 MPH difference in speed, they don't like it. (laughs).

Here is the second part of my chat with Bruce Walton. It was very nice of him to do this.

I didn't mention, with the first part, that I solicited questions from, well, everybody. All the folks listed at the bottom of the page here offered suggestions for questions as well as some other SB Nation folks. Thanks to everyone for their help.

The worst part of these interviews is the transcribing, I'm trying to get better at it, but I'm slow. So any thing that doesn't read well, assume the problem is with my transcribing, not Bruce's answers.

It looked, last year, like all the coaches had a great time with each other.

I've been with Butter for my whole career here, since 2001, so we know each other quite well. I knew Torey from playing with him. John, I didn't really know him before we started, but we all really kind of jelled together and Luis Rivera and Pat Hentgen and Dwayne Murphy and all of us just kind of jelled. We don't step on each other's toes because we don't have an toes to step on. That's what is fun about it, you aren't out of line. You can say anything you want behind closed doors as far as 'I don't like how that guys is playing over there' or 'I don't like how this guy is pitching this guy'. We all get together and we all try to figure it out. It's hard to find a group like that, at times. Someone is always going to get his feelings hurt at times. We don't. We don't get our feelings hurt, we all have thick skin. We understand that if someone says something that we don't like that they are just trying to help and they are not trying to embarrass us or put our theory down. They just have a better one. And we accept that. Our meetings go great. Our communication with our players go great. And we all get along and hang out.

It doesn't only look good, it is good. What you see is what we are every day. Obviously we argue about certain things at times. It's all productive.

Do you have a say in defensive positioning?

You know, me and Butter get together before each series and I give my idea what I'm going to do, what my attack is, to the opposing hitters and he takes that and he puts that into his report. So we just speak and every once in a while we be on the bench and we have a couple of conversations about 'what you going to do here, what you going to do here' and I'll let him know what I think we are going to do and he'll plan accordingly. So we do talk a lot about that, there's no surprises, I know where he is playing us. And he knows where I'm pitching them for the most part. That helps us put together the game plan.

Do you have input on the off-season workout programs the pitchers use?

As far as strength and conditioning, it is pretty much individual. A lot of them have personal trainers in the off-season that are in coordination with our team. So I don't really get too much involved in that end. The throwing program I am directly involved in. We don't really start picking up a baseball until after Christmas. Some might start a little earlier than others. Some might start December 10. Some might start December 1. Some might start January 1. We have an off-season throwing schedule that builds them up for the start of spring training. Starters will probably have up to 5 or 6 bullpen sessions before I even see them. Relievers will have 2-3 bullpen sessions before I even see them.

I'll go down to spring training on the 15th and find out where everyone's at a week a week before (spring training starts). Soon as spring training starts, that have to be ready to jump into a pretty good program. You have 10 days to get ready for a game. So their throwing program, in the off-season, is very important to me. So I know more about that than I know about the strength and conditioning. I know Casey Janssen has a personal trainer, I know a lot of guys have personal trainers. I think they do a lot of that as soon as the season is over. The season isn't no over for them, the season's over they start lifting weights and running and doing all that. But my program doesn't start until December, I give them a couple of months off.

Do you suggest they work on a new pitch during the off-season?

No, every once in a while we discuss some stuff going into the off-season, 'we come to spring training, we might try this or we might try that'. I never really recommended that they try something. That's not to say it's never happened. I know guys that in the off-season they play catch with their buddies that are major league pitchers too and they create a pitch. They said I found this, I start holding the ball like this and it just happens. Sometimes they do find a pitch in the off-season. But there's not a whole bunch of times that I recommend it. I like to start at spring training and get the arm in shape. I'm not really big on trying to find a new pitch until the arm's in shape.

What do you think of pitch counts?

I think pitch counts are good. I think it is a guideline to keeping guys healthy, to keeping younger kids healthy and prolong some careers. And it gives you an idea of what their pitch count is and when to get them out of the game. I don't think you can have a straight across pitch count. I think that the pitchers make their own pitch count for you at times. One guy might be a 95 guy, another guy might be a 105 guy. You might have another guy that is a 110-120 guy. So they kind set their own pitch counts, over the course of you getting to know them. But pitch counts are good, you know, it is a long season, there are a lot of bullets coming out of their arm. I think it needs to be monitored.

Sometimes you hear guys like Nolan Ryan sometimes say 'I threw 140 pitches and I was fine.....

You got a lot invested in pitchers these days. Yeah there are some, the top 5%, yeah there are some guys that can go 115-120 a lot, but that's not very many of them. Most of them are within the 100-105 pitch range, to keep them healthy and strong and good though out the course of the season. A lot of times, we'll run a guy, he's having a great game, he might run 125-130, he's having a good game and you let it go, you know, but the next couple of games aren't very good. You give and you take, but if you can train the arm to go 105-110 to 115 that's the perfect range to me. You keep that consistent, I think the arm stays healthy and it prolongs their career and it keeps your investments in tack.

Your bullpen is down there for a reason, you know, if there is 5 outs left or 6 outs left, those guys need to get the job done down there and your starter doesn't have to take it to 130 to get the job done. You have fresh bullets in the bullpen why not use them.

Do you like it if the pitchers know their pitch count during the game or not?

They know, they know what's where they're at. I like it that they know. It is an easy conversation, they know if they are at 105 and it is the 6th inning, their probably not going back out. If they are at 105 in the 8th, they are probably going back out. Unless they are just dying out there and you can tell things aren't going real well. Even if they are having a great game, it is starting to come up a little bit, it is time to come out, but they know where they are at. They know the pitch counts, they know where me and John are at with them. They try to go longer, they never want to come out. They are always trying to talk me into letting them go back out or talk to John. And I'm like no, you are good for today, we gotta strap it back on in 5 games. There are 4 outs left and the bullpen needs to get that done. I don't mind them knowing where they are at.

Blue Jay pitching coach Bruce Walton was nice enough to come out into the cold to have breakfast and chat with me, Saturday morning. He was very friendly and we ended up talking for almost two hours. I'm sure, after the last couple of very cold week here, that he's looking forward to going to spring training in Florida.

Bruce has worked for the Jays for the past 15 years or so. He started out as pitching coach for the Medicine Hat Blue Jays, in 1996. Then moved up to The Hagerstown Suns in the South Atlantic League. From 1998 to 2002 he was our minor league pitching instructor. Then he moved up to the big league team as bullpen coach. In 2002 he became our pitching coach.

As always, assume any errors to be from my transcribing. It is a pretty long interview so I'll be breaking it up into 4 or 5 parts.

You started your coaching career started in Medicine Hat, what was that like?

Small town, just across the border, the Pioneer League, it was a great experience. for my first year of coaching. When you get to that level, when you go back to that level I guess I should say, it makes you repeat things a lot. It makes you understand that these kids don't know a whole lot coming into pro-ball. And that you know a little bit more than maybe you thought you knew, at that time in your career. It was a fun time, Medicine Hat was great, loved it. It was a small town, you went to other small towns, you rode the bus a lot. I really enjoyed it.

A pitching coach at the rookie league level, I think you are learning while the kids are learning but, again, I think you find out that you know more than you think you did. Then you find out you have to repeat yourself and you have to constantly have to stay on guys about the same subject. Don't take for granted that they are going to remember it the next day. I think that was the biggest thing I learned.

Your first MLB job was bullpen coach. What is the job of bullpen coach, it is really an assistant pitching coach?

Yeah, I think that, the last 10 years, the role of bullpen coach has changed a little bit. A lot of people are going with pitching background rather than hitting, catching or other backgrounds. They are going with an extra pitching coach. You are finding out, you are responsible for half the staff, being the pitching coach, that's 12 pitchers and actually 2 catchers that you deal with every day, so its 14 players. It's nice to have someone that can help, because it is a big task, when you are dealing with half the roster and you are got one coach. And then looking on the other side, they got 12 players and they got 5 coaches. So more and more you see bullpen coaches who are pitching coaches, just assistant pitching coaches, that's what they are.

They have knowledge, just like the pitching coaches. I worked under Brad Arnsberg and Gil Patterson, great pitching coaches, and that's where I learned. So it is also a step, I believe, if your goal is to be a pitching coach.

But the role of the bullpen coach is to handle the bullpen. Those 7 guys, down there, are your guys. Day in, day out, you talk to them every game, you are with them during the game. You have a relationship with them. You keep them under control and also keep them fired up , you are a big crutch for them. And then you manage the game with the manager. The manager calls down or the pitching coach calls down and you are lighting the fire of who they want up, who they want ready and who is he going to face. You know, that's the in game process and that's exciting. Once the 5th inning hits, people's on edge a little bit and it is your job to calm them down. And make things go as smooth as they can. And not to try to surprise anybody. And go in and get outs and try to get the ball to your closer, that was my philosophy during the game. During your down time you are scouting. Your bullpen coach, is also a part time scout. He's in there watching video, he's watching hitters on the other club. He's advancing for you a little bit. He's also helping you with your scouting reports, your advanced reports for each series. So he's there, you know, he's just helping you out. He's also eyes and ears for you. He also has ideas that, he can think outside the box a little bit more than a pitching coach. Sometime you get caught up, you are in the grind, sometimes things are going kind of fast for the pitching coach. The bullpen coach is back there, in the back seat a little bit, and he has a little clearer picture sometimes. He has a lot of ideas that help you get through the season.

You had a good one last year with Pat Hentgen.

Pat Hentgen was a great bullpen coach. A great person in general. A great pitcher, great baseball man, great Blue Jay. The opportunity work with Pat and Pat could get down on the field and experience that is only going to help him in his career. He is still going to be with the Blue Jays. He's still going to help out. He still has aspirations of working in baseball. Right now timing with his family wasn't the best, but he learned a lot down there. And we had a good time and we got a lot of things done.

You've worked with Cito, a former batting coach and now you have a former pitching coach as a manager. What's the difference?

You know, it's not as big a difference as people might think. Cito knew a lot about pitching, I don't think he publically said a lot about it but he did know a lot about pitching. He used to pitch when he was in high school. So, it's not that big of a deal. John, obviously, being a pitching coach for the Boston Red Sox, has a lot of insight to a lot of things, which is very valuable to me. I went up against him, when I was with the Blue Jays he was a pitching coach Red Sox, so he has a lot of ideas on how to get people out. He has a lot of ideas on how to correct things with pitchers. Maybe a little more technical, maybe a little more delivery orientated than Cito. But all-in-all, about the same when the game starts. I think that the flow of talking about pitching, in the down time, flows a little easier. Than talking to a hitter, you know, Cito's still a hitter. It's kind of funny, they don't always agree with pitchers. While John tends to have that pitching background which agrees with me a little bit more.

You have the same language.

The language is about the same but all-in-all not as big a difference as people might think.

The last part of my talk with Marty Brown. I'm always interested in how old school and new school mix in baseball. I thought Marty sounded like an old school baseball guy who understands the new world. I was really interested in what he thought of Brett Lawrie. I find myself agreeing with a lot of what he says. I really like what he says about being aggressive at the plate.

I saw Brett Lawrie in spring training, learning the third base.

You have to remember he is making another position change. He went from catcher to second to third. And that is one of the hardest transitions to make, going from that side of the field to this side of the field.  So it is just a learning experience for Brett, he's taking it on. Mike Mordecai has done a great job with him. I particularly tried to stay on him about moving his feet.  Some things come easy to him so sometimes, at 21 years old, you take that for granted, ‘Awe he's a great young player, he can figure it out', instead of  learning the proper fundamentals to get in front of the ball. Make sure you get the ball on the proper side of your body. Make sure to set your feet when you throw. Brett can do things throwing off one foot or field the ball on the wrong side of his body, he can not move his feet or go from top down instead of down to up and he can still get away with that. So you have to sit back and say ‘Brett don't do it that way'.  And that's the part that he is going to have to learn, that he's going to have to experience that.

And he was told to take more pitches when he was down here?

I think that once Brett gets an understanding of his strike zone, he has a lot of ability and can hit a lot of pitches. It is very important to the front office that guys walk. I don't know how to teach people to walk. We teach people to hit here. But in the proper perspective. I do understand within the numbers and how they tally up and what that means but I feel that if you have a better idea of your strike zone, and have a good plan when you go up to the plate with that strike zone. And understand what you are trying to do. If you are leading off an inning. But I don't want to tell a guy to take. It is the wrong thing to do. That's not what we are here to do. We are not here to teach how to take. We are here to teach how to hit. So we might narrow it down, you might say this is the pitch I'm looking for, if I don't get that pitch I'll take it, but it's all about hit. It is hit, hit, hit, take. Not take, take, take, hit. It doesn't work that way.  So it's right easy to sit up and say ‘yeah but, you need to walk more'. But him to go with that attitude it might take away a lot of his play. I think for him it is more about be selective, hit a good pitch, but your plan in gear. If you get a good pitch over the plate. What are you looking for. Those kind of things that he's gotten better at, that's what's increased his selectiveness at the plate, not somebody walking in from the office telling him to take more pitches, that doesn't work.

There is a constant argument on our site about batters swinging at the first pitch, we have members that don't like that, but the numbers say guys hit .300 on that first pitch.

Or better. I'll tell you what. What are pitchers taught?  That strike one is the most important pitch. It's not about breaking ball or fast ball, it's about strike one, pitch ahead in the count. If I am the hitter, I'd be very selective, if I'm looking fast ball I wouldn't swing at the breaking ball, but if I have a history with the guy. If I had 5 at bats and he started me of with 5 breaking balls, I look for the breaking ball. If he goes with the fast ball, I gotta take it. That's discipline. That's what Brett's learned by being here, not this I'm going try for a walk. Not just to build up the stats. Brett's going to be fine, he's going to swing and miss that will happen. They got better arms up there, he's going to swing and miss. But he's going to learn and learn by, being don't take the aggression out of him. That's one of the things you'd like to have parts of Brett's aggression in a lot of other players. That stuff is tough to teach, he's got it.

Brian Jeroloman, how is he doing?

He is on the 40-man roster, I think Brian has had a tough year on both sides, behind the plate, he isn't throwing many guys out. He's worked hard at it. He was challenged to be stronger, he's been in the weight room. And also offensively, he is seeing a different brand of pitching on an everyday bases. It hasn't been a over the top year for Brian but his skills have gotten better. I know he has gotten stronger. People have been working real hard to with im to get him to understand the importance of that. It is in his lap, he's got to really push himself.

He was taking a lot of walks before, it is harder as you move up.

How many RBI's does he have? You can walk 3 times a year with the bases loaded and have 3 RBI. That's the one thing about Brian now, he's hitting .238, he has 2 home runs, he's got 22 RBI in 250 at bats. He walks and he's not stealing base and not going 1^st to 3^rd, those are the kinds of things that get scued when you talk about walks and OBP. Walks are great but you have to take what the pitcher gives you. You can't make that guy walk you, if he is throwing strikes you have to be ready to hit. You better be on the offensive. Instead of being in a defensive count of 2 strikes and have to battle and battle.

How is Darin Mastroinni doing?

He is getting better. He went to Double-A and really struggled.  We had a lot of guys in the outfield, Travis came down, so we ended up moving Darin down to Double-A. HE scuffed down there and changed his swing. I think now he has gotten to the point where he is more comfortable at the plate. Chad Motolo has him back to where he was before he left. Because he had good stats before he went back to AA, but for whatever reason he struggled and had to come back and start over again.

I like him as a 4^th outfielder.

He has the skills. He has a lot to learn, when it comes to stealing bases, defensively he has great ability, great speed and a good arm. HE can do a lot of things. It is going to take time. He is a good looking player, good athlete, good tools.

Anyone else we should pay attention to?

Chad Beck is a good one, Good arm. Power arm. 96, good slider. Starting right now, later on he might be in the bullpen. I really like his arm and the way he challenges people. I like a lot of things about him, he's the type of guy that will be in the big leagues somewhere. Whether it is Toronto or somewhere else. 

Thanks to Marty for doing this for me and to the Vegas Media Relations Director, Jim Gemma for finding time for me. 

Part two of my little chat with Marty Brown. As I mentioned yesterday, it would have been better to watch a couple of games before talking to him but that's life. 

How is Adam Loewen, a favourite of mine?

He is one of my favourites too. He works extremely hard. He's put together a very positive season in all aspects. Base running, he's gotten better, defensively he is very sound wherever I put him, like first base tonight. He's done a good job there. Offensively, he's had spells of being very very hot and very cold. Then he'll go to a point where he is very consistent for a long period of time. You don't see the relapses with no hits or moments when he looks lost, I haven't seen that. That's a good sign that he is getting closer to being more consistent that it takes to put together a good year.

Will he be a September call up?

If it were up to me he would be. Obviously it's not my decision. But they definitely will hear my views on it, I venture to say with the work he has put in and what he's done, they need to take a look at it. If he can get it done at that level, we'll never know unless we see.

He's in a tough spot without options...

It is a hard spot. I think his arm feels better now than before he was hurt. He's throwing the ball well, plays good defence, I hate to lose him, because he has put in so much hard work. This was kind of a year to see what Adam could do and he has responded real well.

David Cooper?

David Cooper can hit, there is no doubt about that. I think everyone believes that. The year he's put together is phenomenal. Whether his power numbers play at his spot? David has to play first base.  Where a guy like Adam Loewen could move to first or play corner outfield where you have a spot open. David is a first baseman or a DH. So with that lurking, does his power play? I know this, I'd take him over anybody with a man in score position with two outs. He'd figure out a way to get a hit.

What do you think of Eric Thames defence?

Well he was rough, really rough. Base running and defence was something he worked on a lot here. I thought he was making some progress, he did a lot of hard work here taking ground balls. We had him at first base taking ground balls, I think that will help him in the outfield too. He is very athletic, but he has a roughness to him in the outfield that looks worse than it likely is, it is just the way that Eric plays. It is a matter of more repetition,  with more time I think that he has the ability to get better.

What does Travis Snider have to work on down here?

Travis will be fine. I think he was just between pitches somewhat up there. We saw that happen here, at the beginning, when he got here. I think Chad Mottola (51's batting coach) is very good with him.

What do you mean by in between pitches?

He's not like on the fastball or on the breaking ball, so by the time he gets it figured out or sees the ball out of the hand, it is too late to react. Normally, you want to be on a fastball, dead on it, 100% and then react to something soft. Sometimes I think he gets in between, in the sense that he is ‘ok he's going to throw the change up here'. So the first changeup he sees, he tries to go get it. The key to pitching is to try to make the hitters do something they really don't want to do, that's kind of where I think Travis has been.

What have you seen from our recent trade pick up P.J. Walters?

He had a rough outing yesterday, his first two starts were very solid. Ge's not a big guy. He won't light up the radar gun, he's more about command. Yesterday he was up in the zone, he didn't have the command we saw in his first two outings. It could have just been a bad day. We'll run him back out there. I feel good about him out there. You could see he did a good job for us his first couple of times out, yesterday was one of those days.

I figured the Jays were looking at him for a bullpen spot?

I don't know, I really don't know. We got him in that trade and haven't seen that much of him. He had that one outing in Toronto before he came down. We are trying to build him up slowly. He had a set back the last game, we'd like him to get deeper into the pitch count. Next game we'll get him back to where we wanted him.

Mike McCoy has been up and down a lot...

He's got a great personality for it. He understands the situation. Anytime you can get to the big leagues it is a big thing. Michael takes a lot of pride in that. He feels as though he is a big league player. He tries to stay as prepared as he can. When he comes back it takes him 2 or 3 days to get back to his normal self. We try to take that into account, keep running him out there. Sure enough he'll have a really good game, he'll put up 5 balls in play and play hard and get 3 hits and play hard.

He is one of my favourites.

He's just a gamer.

He can do everything.

You'll like Lawrie a lot, he brings a lot of energy like Michael.

When I was down in Vegas I was fortunate enough to be allowed to talk to 51's manager Marty Brown. The 51's don't play a lot of games in Vegas in August, as it is pretty hot, so there were a lot things going on. Sportsnet had folks down there filming interviews. So I was lucky to have the PR guy Jim Gemma allow me a few minutes to talk to Marty Brown. 

The interview was on the Monday I arrived in Vegas. In hindsight, it would have been better to talk to him after I had seen a game or two. That Monday was a long day, flying out fairly early from Calgary, checking in the hotel, then heading out to the ballpark. On top of it being a long day and talking to him before I had seen the park, I had pretty bad laryngitis that night, I guess something to do with the flight and the being in air conditioning when I got to town. My voice was back by the middle of the game, I could cheer for Moonraker.

Marty Brown  he came up, as a player, in the Cincinnati Reds system and played a couple of seasons for them and the Baltimore Orioles back in the late 80's and early 90's. He started his minor league managing career in the Pirates system in 1997 and managed for several levels of their system, until 2002. Then he became the manager of Buffalo Bisons, the Indians Triple-A team for 3 years. After that he went over to Japan and managed the Hiroshima Toyo Carp for 4 seasons and thne Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles for a season before coming back to North America this year. I'd love to talk to him again, one day, just about his experiences in Japan, but with us talking before game time, I didn't want to keep him away from his real work for too long.

We talked in his office, having to pass through the assistant coaches small room and the players clubhouse on the way to it. The players were playing poker and ragging on each other for the dumb bets. Their room was not large, there was enough room, but you wouldn't have wanted it any smaller. 

Marty had his dog with him, roaming the clubhouse and his office, gotta like a guy who brings his dog to work. After each game I saw him out running his dog, I can imagine the dog doesn't like extra inning games. I enjoyed talking to him, every time I talk to someone in baseball, I'm reminded how much there is for me to learn.

 My questions in bold. It was fairly noisy in his office, so sometimes it was hard to decipher what was being said on my recorder, so some of the words might not be exactly right but no meaning has been changed. 

You played for the Orioles with Cal Ripken.

I played in Baltimore for a couple of years. I played second with Cal Ripken, I was one of 32 men that played second with him.

And you managed in Japan, how does it compare to managing over here?

It is a different culture, different mind set. You play for 1 run early, get the lead and try to add on, where we are more the trying for the big inning. Tend not to bunt so much every game. Tend not to do situational hitting early in the game.  We are more about score 4. They have a different way of looking at how games run. It was a good experience, for me, to go through that. But,  I got back and could actually speak to players in English. Not having an interpreter talking about anything. It's good, I'm glad to be back.

It must be hard to be sure they are saying what you want.

You put a lot of faith in them, but they don't want to offend the players, when you really want to offend the players. I was fortunate in Hiroshima, my interpreter had baseball knowledge and he actually played and he wasn't Japanese. He had the baseball knowledge to be able to communicate what I meant to say in baseball language but then he didn't have the cultural background, he wasn't raised in Japan. He didn't understand the bottom line of how saying something might affect the way the players feel.

Then I had the opposite, the next team that I had, I had a guy with no baseball knowledge and yet he was very fluent in Japanese and English so sometimes he would try to make it softer, to not offend the player.

How do you do deal with the effects of the heat on the players in Vegas?

The changes are more about preparation. Certain days we'll have optional hitting, or we'll have no hitting on the field, just guys preparing in the cage. Or we might have one day, out of a whole stand, we might do everything and then maybe not take infield, we don't want to keep the players out in the heat too long. We try to use common sense. So we try to look at it with an understanding that the game is the most important thing that you are trying to build for. Certain players need it, certain players you need to shut down more.

Why is the park in Vegas so geared for offense? Is it just the thin air?

That and the heat. The heat rises, the ball hit in the air just never seems to come down, at times. There are certain nights when the ball really jumps here and then, early in the year it is cooler but the wind, the wind will pick up and just carry one out. We've have a fairly legitimate power field here. Down the line it is normal, but the gaps are kind of short and shoot straight out to center. Center is very very deep so from RF to the gaps it is very very normal if not short in gaps, but then center is 433 feet with a very high wall so it kind of evens things out in some ways.

Does it make it harder for you to decide when to pull a pitcher?

Yeah this is a tougher league for pitchers, but if a guy comes through the PCL and is among the league leaders in pitching, he has built his worth even more.  So if you look at it as if you don't want a pitcher to go to Vegas because his ERA might go up or you could say I want the pitcher to go there and see if his ERA is stable, if it does you got something.

And the Jays play in the AL East...

Exactly, it is not going to get any easier.

What do you think about Brad Mills?

You know, one thing that everybody looks at Brad he doesn't throw hard, I look at it as he is very sure of his stuff. Early in the year he had good command, and he had good balance. He just trusts his stuff. He isn't a hard thrower, that scares you, thinking the 3^rd time through the order he's going to get hit because they know where his changeup is going. The thing about Brad is he will challenge people. He will make pitches a lot of people wouldn't even consider trying. He is very sure of his ability. In my mind he has got a lot of heart. I could never fault that.

I wanted to ask about Brett Lawrie's defence?

He's getting there, I think that before it got hurt he was in a real good place defensively. He put in a lot of hard work from the beginning of the year till that time. And then the setback, he was gone for 3 weeks, maybe,  and during that time he was in Florida trying to rehab his hand and came back and it looked like he backed up on some of that progression. He was on his way to getting back where he was, before he was called up. He still wasn't as comfortable in the field as he was before he left. He's got it in there, he's got great athletic ability, good hand, good strong arm, very accurate. It is just a matter of experience. He's done the things he needs to here, Mr. Butterfield and Mr. Rivera can finish him off up there. 

How has Kyle Drabek looked?

He's getting better, when he first came down he was, with his mechanics, he didn't have anything that was consistent.  He had a couple of really rough outings and then he stepped up and had a couple of really good ones. It is more about consistency, with Kyle, he's got a great arm. It is where his balance point is and where his landing point is, that needs to be consistent to put together every pitch. He is in the process of getting that done. It is just one of those things that it takes time for a young guy that is a power arm, max effort type of pitcher. It's hard to get him slowed down enough to keep everything in a row. He's getting there, he's working hard, we are hoping he goes out and has a good outing tonight.

Will he be back in Toronto this year?

I don't know, I think Kyle will figure that out for us.